Discount HP Envy 4-1130us 14-Inch Ultrabook (Black)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $849.99
Sale Price: $729.87
Today's Bonus: 14% Off

Screen: My last laptop was a late 2011 macbook pro. Other reviews are saying that the screen is bad and some are saying it's good. Compared to the screen on the macbook it's worse. The screen isn't terrible but it isn't going to win any awards.

Keyboard: The keyboard layout is similar to the mac. The keys light up but don't change intensity. The backspace key doesn't quite fit right. Depending on the angle you type at you may notice it when typing.

Processing: I don't know why other reviews say this laptop is only for light workloads. This i5 processor in this laptop is fully capable of heavy workloads. It can run super pi 1 mb faster than an AMD FX-8320 desktop processor. On more realistic tests its about the same as the mobile AMD A10 processors. Power usage however is much lower for the i5 compared to either processor.

Graphics: The integrated graphics in the Ivy-Bridge processors is amazing. Its no graphics card but for the efficiency its perfect.

Sound: The beats audio isn't meant to blow you away. The main benefit is the sound card driver for beats audio is not the speakers itself. With beats audio the sound quality with headphones is great!

Build/Design: This laptop is built really well. HP did a great job on the design. It's small and lightweight while not feeling cheap or sacrificing on battery. (Actually battery life is around 5-6 hours depending on usage and after removing all of HP's bloatware) The black aluminum looks really cool as long as it's clean. This thing attracts shows smudges and lint more than anything I've ever seen.

To help the washed out look of the screen try the following:

1. Right click on the desktop

2. Select "Graphics Properties"

3. Display/Color Enhancement

4. Use the sliders to change:

a. Brightness 10

b. Contrast 45

c. Gamma 0.8

d. Saturation 5

5. Apply

This does reduce overall brightness but you will get much darker blacks and a wider range of color differences. Gradients appear much better and text is much more clear.

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The fit/finish of the laptop is amazing. Very solid, reminds me of my Macbook Pro. Has all the ports I was looking for including gigabit Ethernet. (Excluded on the XPS 13 and why I choose HP) Boot times are the fastest I've seen in any laptop thanks to Windows 8 and the hybrid SSD drive. 10 seconds and your ready to launch applications.

So why only 3 stars? The Screen.... After you get over the lovely fit/finish and start the laptop your greeted to a screen with noticeable back-light bleed. Blacks appear grey and the viewing angle is extremely limited. This screen belongs on a $350 Black Friday special not an "Envy". If you can keep your angle just right the screen looks decent but having used far better screens on laptops 3-4 years older I was very disappointed. It's also worth noting the only thing inspired by the "Beats" logo is the paint. Expect below average sound from the built in speakers.

Best Deals for HP Envy 4-1130us 14-Inch Ultrabook (Black)

This is a very elegant and very useful for those who don't need a computer that performs heavy tasks and uses heavy programs. Windows 8 is complicated but it's matter of time for you to get used to it. This windows is really fast, actually when you turn it on it takes only 10-11 seconds to get ready for start using the computer. I agree with the other customer that says that there's no problem with the screen; despite it is a glossy screen the colors are so vivid and you can see it perfectly from any angle, it's quality is great not cheap as others said. The price was worth it, I would recommend it highly for students and people who needs it for light tasks. It's weigh is ridiculously light and I like the soft color red base it has. The beats audio is impressive for an audio system of a computer, it also has the option of configurate the audio for a best hearing experience. There's a concern I have is the response of the touch pad because not always senses when you click to open something or when clicking a button but you will get used to click a little more harder for it to response. In the other features I am more than happy with this computer. Also I don't like very much that it catches fingerprints very fast but this doesn't affect the real functionality of a computer.

To conclude, this computer has a great outer design, great beats audio, really light weigh and it's incredibly fast at everything. It has a few flaws but it doesn't affect the computer's performance. I recommend it!

Honest reviews on HP Envy 4-1130us 14-Inch Ultrabook (Black)

I've searched for a couple of months, to find another slim and light laptop with equivalent power and options as this model, and nothing has equaled or surpassed this Envy 4 1130us. In short, it's the best value machine at this price point.

Just look up the Win 7 version of this model, here on Amazon (Envy 4 1030us), and you'll find that it is an identical machine, only with 2 gigs less ram, and it sells for $100+ more.

So let's get to the important facts about this machine.

POWER & SPEED.

The combination of the Intel i5's power and the SSD and 500 gig hard drive RAID array, along with the much improved Windows 8 mass storage controllers, makes this machine blistering fast. Bear in mind that just like any other brand or model of new laptop, it has to be tweaked to perform as it should (tweaking will have to be covered later or this review will be a mile long).

I repair and tweak computers, day in day out and this is the fastest one I've had my hands on, except a Windows 7, $1,300 Dell XPS laptop that had an Intel i7 and a big SSD. I don't have it next to me to compare, but that would be the only machine that may have equaled or surpassed this one for performance.

SCREEN.

The screen is fine. Those who are complaining about it are expecting more than you can get at this price point. If you'd like the image to be even crisper and sharper, there are a few adjustments that can be made. (I may add those details as a PS at the end)

CONSTRUCTION.

Those who complained about poor construction, must have received defective models. The construction of this model is nothing less than superb. The only complaint is that fingerprints stick to it and it means that you'll have to wipe it down everyday, with a damp cotton cloth. The brushed aluminum build is fantastic and makes for a very solid machine.

KEYBOARD.

Everybody has an opinion as to what constitutes the perfect keyboard, so all I can say is that it is clearly a superior keyboard and that having the backlit feature is huge, for those folks who are not real typists, and need to see the keys to be able to type properly.

TOUCHPAD.

If you understand that this touchpad is set to work as if it were part of a touchscreen, thus scrolling up becomes down and vice versa, then you'll quickly get used to it and will soon agree that it is one of the very best on the market.

WINDOWS 8,

For those who don't already know it, Win 8 can be made to look and function just like 7, by downloading Start Menu 8 from iobit, then disabling all the charms bars and hot corners. It's only natural that I/you/we would want it to work like 7, as this model doesn't have a touchscreen, so why in the world would we want to use Win 8's new touchscreen interface (often known as Metro apps). Other than some graphics differences, it's so identical to Win 7 after the tweak mentioned above, that to the untrained eye, you wouldn't even know that it wasn't a Win 7 machine.

BATTERY LIFE.

It's simply amazing. Right now, I'm at 84% remaining battery power and the time estimate is at 5 hours and 14 minutes. I could turn down the brightness, to squeeze out some more, but it is already good for 6 hours plus, set the way it is (don't forget that this machine is well tweaked, so brand new out of the box, the battery life won't be quite as good).

HEAT.

It can produce a minor amount of heat at the back where the air exhausts. Laying the sides on each one of my legs, is 100% comfortable on battery. If you have it plugged in and it's charging, it will get warmer and may be a wee bit uncomfortable.

This laptop must NOT be used on material like cloth, a bed, a towel, etc, that can block the air intake from the bottom. If you need to use it in such a location, prop it up a bit with something.

WIFI.

I have never seen a laptop with better reception, nor one that can download as fast. If I go to a given website to download a file with any of my other computers, they download at approx. half the speed than this one does. I haven't investigated why this is, but suffice to say that it is better than what is normally included in a laptop.

All the features have been mentioned, so there's no reason to go over them again.

It's a simple mathematical equation. Does this machine give you more than similar ones at this price point? YES!

Is it super fast? Darn right it is!

Is the battery life good? It's superb!

How good is the Wifi? Beyond your expectations!

Is it well built? It's fantastic!

Is it a good looking machine? It's as handsome a laptop as I have ever seen!

Would it satisfy any normal user? Absolutely!

________________________________________________

Here are the settings that make for a sharper image on this laptop.

I found them somewhere on the internet and noted them down, then both my friend and I used them on our Ultrabooks (we both have the same machine) and we both feel that the results are excellent.

You may or may not agree and if they don't suit you, you can reset them back to their default settings.

Right click on the desktop and select "Graphics Properties".

In the subsequent window, select "Advanced Mode" then hit OK.

In the next windows, select "Color Enhancement", then set the Brightness to -20. the Contrast to 51 and the Gamma to 0.9 and leave the other two untouched.

You will find that the brightness is slightly diminished, but that the image is much more "real".

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for HP Envy 4-1130us 14-Inch Ultrabook (Black)

Everything is good except the screen. I'll not comment on other features because all of them function so far so good.

I have a HP G7 which screen has resolution 1600x900. So comparing with this (1366 x 768) I feel the Ultrabook is not better or even worse than the G7 regarding the screen. This Ultrabook is beautiful but the screen is disappointing. Currently $750 ultrabook is not as cheap as the others with better config but at the same price level.

The previous reviewer said the screen looks bleeding (too much red). It is true but the color can be calibrated (Personalize->Display->Calibrate Color). The color should have been calibrated properly when come out of factory. As he said the view angle is bad. I believe HP chose the cheapest screen on the market.

Update:

Comparing to other same kind of ultrabooks this design is attractive. Very good look&feel on real product.

What I disagree with the previous reviewer is that the beats audio is impressive. It is loud and has deep base although it is not a professional audio system which you cannot expect on a laptop.

The keyboard and touch panel are quite good quiet and responsive.

Dell Inspiron 15R i15RM-2659sLV 15.6-Inch Laptop (Moon Silver) Review

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $599.99
Sale Price: $569.99
Today's Bonus: 5% Off

The size is nice and its nice to have a built in 10 key, but it's heavy. You could practically use it as an anchor so you definitely don't want to travel much with it. The battery life is in reality about 3 hours so don't go far without the cord.

As for the hardware itself, the keyboard and touch-pad are very low quality. The keyboard I can deal with but the touch-pad is absolutely horrible. It navigates the pointer with very low accuracy and is extremely non-responsive. Even with the touch-guard turned on, the mouse jumps around while typing and is difficult to find when you need it. I use an actual mouse most of the time which resolves this but this can be difficult when out and about with it so this is where the challenges become very apparent.

This laptop comes with Windows 8, while not Dells fault, is clearly an operating system designed more for use on a tablet than on a laptop. It is awkward, extremely cumbersome and very very inconvenient. Especially for veteran windows users. If you get this laptop and have a copy of Windows 7 laying around, I recommend the downgrade. It was rated one of the highest by Consumer Reports for laptops in this price range which is why I got it, but if I had to do it over again, I would probably spend a little more and get something else.

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I bought the laptop and I've had it for a day. So far it seems to be pretty solid with the exception of the bloatware that's installed. But I guess you get that anywhere now-a-days. I just wanted to clarify the resolution on this. It is 1366x768, not 1920x1080 or the other 1366x1378 (more tall than wide??) as stated in the description. It is a solid laptop and hard to beat for the price.

Best Deals for Dell Inspiron 15R i15RM-2659sLV 15.6-Inch Laptop (Moon Silver)

it's not a full hd laptop as it says in specifications

but it an amazing laptop with really good battery life

Honest reviews on Dell Inspiron 15R i15RM-2659sLV 15.6-Inch Laptop (Moon Silver)

I am very sad today to get a computer, a very serious problem is that the laptop's screen resolution is 1366 * 768, but the website is written in 1920 * 1080 and I think this is cheating, I now use this notebook in China, difficult to service, but the problem needs to be addressed, it is who is to blame? I do not know how to do, This is so sad.

Cheap Lenovo G580 15.6-Inch Laptop

Customer Ratings:

Our daughter needed a new laptop for college. We gave her a budget. She selected this one. It worked great for the entire first semester except for a couple of glitches caused by some third party software she installed.

We got the 2-year service plan with the computer and Lenovo was great about answering all of our daughter's questions.

They resolved the issue in one call, although it took twenty minutes to do it.

( I told her, "twenty minutes is not bad," but when you're a teenager who is missing crucial gossip, it seems an eternity!)

Our beloved daughter types faster than a raging robot, and so, is very hard on keyboards. Sure enough, at the end of the school year while she was visiting home, her keyboard developed a broken key.

"This cheap thing is ^$%%# &&$5 (*#&^$6) "

(She was in the middle of an important discussion with some of her friends about some other friends when it died. From my den downstairs I could hear her hammering away above me (in her room) with the frenetic passion of a Jack Kerouac.)

Two keys had been pressed so hard that they collapsed and wedged in place, rendering all other keys useless as they sent repeating !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! messages. That day I learned that all teenagers believe you can make your point LOUDER if you type harder.

Well, one quick call from momma, and Lenovo sent her a NEW KEYBOARD. They were very helpful both over the phone and by referring us to their excellent repair videos. Momma, (who is NOT particularly good with tools) got the old board out and the new one in in less than a half-hour!

She was so impressed with this service that she bought another Lenovo exactly like the kid's. The difference is that Mamma doesn't BANG on her keyboard when typing emotional messages. Result? We have had both of these working perfectly for over a year and a half now. For any computer that runs Microsoft, I consider that a victory.

SO, the machine is well-designed, works like it is supposed to and does not break if it is not abused. If it does break, Lenovo has resources to make fixing it faster and easier. It may not be "emotional teenage girl YELLING ON FACE BOOK proof" ...but it is darn close.

If you are an adult, (or behave like one) you will probably have no such problems. If you snap a gasket some night whilst typing furiously, Lenovo will come through for you under warranty, no shipping charges for parts.

That's better than any other PC company I've dealt with.

Hope that helps!

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The laptop came from Amazon within a couple of days and was nicely packaged. The initial setup for the Lenovo was also nice. That is where nice ended.

The laptop shipped with a malware/spyware package called Nitro. Nitro blocked the Windows 8 updates. There were some Lenovo instructions that said to update Nitro but that crashed too. If you buy this laptop, the answer is easy: UNINSTALL NITRO immediately. It is some buggy emulation software that you will never need. You will also need to disable Nitro's spyware cousin, Nalpeiron. The instructions to do this are on the Lenovo Community Forum for Windows 8. Normally this would have caused me to rate it 1 Star but unfortunately all the laptop makers are taking payola to put spyware on your computer. You will probably have similar experiences with any other Windows machine.

Also, Windows 8 is a major change. Don't buy this for the non-computer savvy person in your family. Buy a Windows 7 PC for them while you still can. And remember, Windows 8 is built into the BIOS and you cannot downgrade even with a complete disk format.

And buy from Amazon because they will stick up for you in these sorry deals. Their hardware, Kindle, just works.

Best Deals for Lenovo G580 15.6-Inch Laptop

Pros: price, keyboard, power management, screen clarity.

Cons: wifi takes a couple of minutes to start from cold boot; no issues after that.

I've been scouring the internet for a new computer after mine was stolen. I looked at the new breed of instant on, 14 inch display units. But why sacrifice screen space? Real work requires a sizable screen and a 15 inch is my minimum. I tried a 12 inch that I borrowed but that is simply too small.

I had an older g580 variant that I picked up for 500 dollars two years ago. Loud fan, not so great power management. Great keyboard. This is an evolutionary product. The fan noise is gone; at least not as I use it. Power users may find it otherwise.

The keyboard is different, but just as nice as the newer high-end lenovo laptops. Its the best keyboard currently available. So if you are planning to do serious typing, as I do, then this is a major plus. One note on the keyboard/touchpad. The touchpad is the latest variety that is multitouch and very large. It makes typing more difficult. You learn to reposition your hands and most of the time it is a non-issue. To make things easier, I went in and changed the multitouch settings, turning over the perimeter of the touchpad, where you are most likely to have an issue. Works well with that tweak. Others just use a mouse and turn it off altogether. Either way, this is the size of touchpad that's here to stay, so we just have to deal with it.

How is the screen? Those that crave a high resolution will need to cough up more cash for a different model. But let's be practical: you simply do not need it. I've watched netflix movies on here, and its as crisp as an HDTV to my untrained eye, overall excellent.

As for the battery life, that is why I elected to wait for a third generation I3 chip. The improvements are notable. I can get up to 3 hrs with routine use, better than the 90 min of my old laptop, though I haven't timed it precisely. While a far cry from some of the newer models, you pay more for those, so figure out how many hours unplugged you really need.

What about the sound? It has dolby stereo and plenty of power. Great for netflix.

So what's not to like? My only nit is that the wifi takes a while to find the router. Occasionally I have to run the troubleshooter to reset the adapter, a pretty simple task. But once the wifi is running, its fine. You can watch a film front to back without a glitch.

Overall, I think this is the best bang for the buck in a 15 inch laptop, especially if you can find it on sale.

Honest reviews on Lenovo G580 15.6-Inch Laptop

This is going to be a perfect gift for Mom and Dad (baby boomers) and their first PC windows 8 is a nice touch and will be our third Lenovo laptop very solid performers and very little in the way of hardware issues. Nice bright screens and fantastic touch on the keyboards. Nice addition with the USB 3.0 ports. All in the all for the price and with an Intel i3 3rd gen a really nice package for the price $429 on 11/22/12. We own a G780 also and highly recommend it as well.

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Update of original review -

After owning this machine for less than 2 weeks I began to have software problems, specifically with the Windows Updater. The machine would hang while updating any software that used the Updater. I called the Lenovo Helpdesk and was told to reload the Windows partition, which I didn't want to do since I would have to reload hours of installs and updates to Norton, MSoffice, Itunes etc. I was transferred to advanced software support where the tech told me he would help but at a cost of $59.00. "WHAT!" I said, "the machine is only 10 days old". "Too bad" he said. "Goodbye" I said and returned the machine to Office Depot taking advantage of their 14 day return policy, and traded it for a Toshiba. In retrospect I would have given the machine 0 stars and I will never buy a Lenovo product again.

Original review =

This is a nice machine for the price. Lenovo makes several G580 models with different configurations. This one has the Core i3 3110M processor which is pretty fast. I was a little disappointed that this model didn't have Bluetooth but I can live without it.

So far the only redeeming feature I can find about Windows 8 is that it boots fast. Other than that the menus, screens, and features are different from other versions of Windows and take some time to get used to. They've removed the Start button from the Desktop view. The most aggravating thing I found so far is that the Windows Mail tool in Windows 8 doesn't support POP3 servers used by a lot of ISPs. You have to sign up for a Windows mail account to find this out. If you have a POP3 server for your incoming mail delete the Windows 8 Mail and download Windows Live from Microsoft's website or some other tool.

I saw complaints about the sensitivity of the touch pad but it's adjustable and can probably be set to most users preferences. The default settings are set to very sensitive touches and pressures.

I like the feel of the keyboard but I'm a 2 finger typist so YMMV.

The Nitro program mentioned as Spyware in some reviews is, according to Google, a third party PDF viewer. I installed Norton 360 and didn't get any bad reports on it but I uninstalled it since I use the standard Adobe Reader for that stuff. I also saw a complaint about the Chrome window size not being adjustable but it sizes fine on my machine. Things like using the Ctrl +/to magnify work too.

Wireless connectivity is good. The machine has a Broadcom 802.11n adapter and it connected with my Linksys router with no problems. It also recognized my Canon Mg5320 printer on the network and configured it without having to run any setup programs so I guess that's also a plus for Windows 8.

The display is bright and crisp enough for me to be happy.

All in all I think it's a good machine for the price.

Review of Acer 15.6" Intel i3-370M 2.40 GHz 500GB Notebook | AS5733-6607

Customer Ratings:

Purchased this PC on closeout at Walmart for $270.00. It has handled everything I have thrown at it well so far. Those things include video format conversion, some gaming (The Sims, and some other first person shooter games), and lots of high profile video playback.

I have not noticed any issues with overheating as I did with my previous laptop made by HP. The screen is very bright and sharp. Battery life is good. Just a good all around computer, and incredible for the price. It feels really sturdy, and I like that it is not a huge finger print magnet like pcs covered in glossy finsihes. I really love that it has all Intel products inside. I am not a fan of AMD, NVidia, etc since they have given trouble on almost ever PC I have owned.

Less than stellar bits include speakers that are decent, but not super rich sounding like some higher end models. They keyboard has a nice layout, and good key travel. It also looks cool. It is a raised "floating" chiklet style. I only mention this as a possible downer because you will want to be mindful not to leave the keyboard exposed for long periods of time in a dirty environment. Because the keys are raised it is easier for junk to get under the keys. It is easy to clean it out with some canned air, or just by blowing on it! But still something to be mindful of. Lastly, the mouse is multitouch, which is nice especially as more and more software is optimized for such devices. But it takes getting used to, and I recommend that you go through the pointing device settings to adjust the sensitivity to your liking.

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bought this about 8 months ago from walmart the 1st 3 weeks the computer ran fine and i had no issues other than i noticed it got hot fairly easily(standard acer issue) and the keyboard was stiff here and there. within the next month i decided to play some games...., when i mean games i mean skyrim and halflife2 not chess. anyway it played them fine but 1hour in to either game and the system went black from overheating, i figured it was because of using it on my lap(still dont get how youre not supposed to use a laptop on your lap)tried it on a desk and it still overheated. i decided to use a cooling mat but to no avail it was too weak and i said to hell with if i pulled an old wind dance window fan and put it under it, luckly it works...kinda the things a bit ugly lol. anyway after i "fixed" that issue i noticed that a few keys were jamming constantly, this is an engineering flaw produced by a moron, this keyboard is one of the worst ive seen, it is a raised system on standard a standard styled plastic spring with no dust guard and plenty of space for hair wires/cables/crumbs and whatever to fall into it, only way to clean it without removing the keys would be alot of canned air, when looking closer at the springs they may look standard but they are much cheaper and very fragile, they also come apart easily causing jammed keys, which if forced will break and bend the springs.... obviously not good and rather frustrating. the next issue that i still have is ive filled the hd about 180gb so far and its started to lagg horribly during load up, ive even uninstalled and prevented unnecessary programs from running on startup but its not working, im asuming the hd is going bad i have yet to finish my first year so atm im waiting for it to finally die and if it doesnt then im going to tear it apart and build a liquid cooling system for it along with get it a much more reliable hd hopefully built better than the current anyway thats my 2 cents if you still wanna buy it i dont suggest any decent quality games on it. also on another note buy a pc from someone that alows a 90day return policy not walmart....

Lenovo - IdeaPad Y500 (Dusk Black) - Intel Quad-Core i7-3630QM Review

Customer Ratings:

This computer is amazing incredible graphics, sound and build quality.

The i7 3630 quad core handles everything thrown at it games, photoshop and autocad.

Also the keyboard on this thing is simply breath taking, it looks like one of those alien ware builds but at a fraction of the price.

All in all i am happy with my purchase.

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Reviews of Toshiba Satellite L655-S5103 15.6-Inch Laptop (Fusion Finish in

Customer Ratings:

I have been enjoying my Toshiba laptop for some time now & would highly recommend this laptop to others. It was just what I was looking for at an affordable price.

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Cheap ASUS G55VW-ES71 15.6-Inch Gaming Notebook (Black)

Customer Ratings:

I just received this computer, and I have to say it's beautiful. Before I get into the specs, let me address some things the other reviewer has said.

Firstly, Asus's customer support is about the same as any other computer manufacturer, if not better. There's absolutely no way to have a bad experience with Asus, and the quality of their computers have been exceptional in my experience with them. I've never had a problem before, and I don't expect for there to be one for anyone now.

Secondly, as for the updating the internal components, there are probably guides on Youtube, and the guide is probably not included because most users won't need it.

Thirdly, yes, the power brick is quite large and heavy, but I don't see a problem considering you'll be stationary while playing, and it's a rather long cord. It's not as if you have to lay the power brick on your face while you play.

But as for the Asus G55VW -

+ The Asus G55 is a sleek, gaming-powerhouse laptop engineered specifically for long hours of use while playing the most demanding games. I can throw anything at this laptop, unlike many laptops, and know that it will never run hot. With the left exhaust port, if I remember correctly, being specifically for the CPU, the fan will run independently from the right fan at whatever speed it needs. The right fan, however, being for the GPU, will cool your GPU during long hours of hard gaming.

+ When playing games, the touchpad, keyboard, and palmrest stay at about 70 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The cooling system does an excellent job in capturing the heat and throwing it out of the back of the computer.... quietly. The sound from the fan is measured at approximately 30 decibels, which is not even as loud as a whisper. I was very impressed with this, as most laptops with the power that this computer has run hot.

+ The ports are in ergonomic locations. The Asus G55 features four USB 3.0 ports, with two on the right near side, and two on the far left side. On the right, this laptop has both an HDMI and VGA, alongside the DC power port.

+ The keyboard, screen, and touchpad are all phenomenal. Featuring a HD display, everything looks crisp and clear... and runs smoothly. I've got no problem playing Skyrim on Ultra, or TOR on the maximum settings.

The above is just from my personal experience with the computer, but if you want to know more, I'd direct you here.

Product Showcase Asus G55VW Unboxing & Benchmarks (by GenTechPC)

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I just received my laptop on 6/1 (ordered 5/30) and here is my review after a few days of tinkering. For those of you that do not wish to read through the entire review, here is a summary ~

Pros:

Beautifully sleek

Back-lit keyboard with adjustable brightness settings

Condensed full-size keyboard

Soft and comfortable palm rest

Extremely fast 3rd generation Core i7 quad core processor

Four USB 3.0 ports instead of just one

Insanely quiet fans

Comfortably cool in all situations

Cons:

Extremely large power brick

VIA drivers for sub-woofer

Cloning

Review:

The ASUS G55VW-ES71 far exceeds expectations when it comes to gaming or any other heavy processing activities, and it performs all of its duties while encased in one of the most beautiful laptop shells ever designed. The keyboard is laid out in a Chiclet style with each button as its own "island," and ASUS managed a 10-key number pad on the right hand side. The lighting behind the keyboard is adjustable, making it the perfect the brightness for anyone. The palm rest is layered with a soft mat material resulting in a comfortable gaming and typing experience.

The incorporated processor is blazing fast. Intel's new quad-core processor with eight threads lives up to expectations with a Windows Experience Index of 7.6 (out of a possible 7.9). Memory on this beast of a machine scores at a 7.8, and the graphics chugs up a more than respectable score of 7.3. This machine is only bottlenecked by the hard drive score of 5.9 (the only one out of all the categories that does not score a 7 or higher). Not to fret, with a little bit of dedicated time, replacing the factory hard drive with a shiny Solid State Drive (SSD) is quite a breeze, boosting this category's score to the max of 7.9. This of course means that the lowest score for this machine would be the GTX 660M's score of 7.3, but there should not be a soul who would be mad about the graphic card's performance when comparing to other similar machines.

ASUS took no expense in giving their users the best of the best. Keeping in consistency with the machine's speed, ASUS decided to load this rig with four total USB 3.0 slots. No more finding or struggling to look for more USB 3.0 inputs for your external hard drives because the manufacturer only decided to upgrade one of the four USB inputs to the 3.0 generation, now you can plug it into any of the USB slots and you will experience the glory of USB 3.0 speeds. The cable gets in the way for the USB slot in the back? Plug it in on the side! The user experience gets better. Usually gaming units such as the G55VW will need increased airflow to keep all its parts running cooler and lasting longer. This usually meant that the fan would have to run incredibly fast and loud. ASUS took the liberty to design a machine that runs comfortably cool and indescribably quiet! Whether you're on your bed instant messaging and gaming or you're at your desk, well, instant messaging and gaming, you will be able to relax without the noticing your laptop blazing on your leg and you will not be disturbing anyone else in the vicinity with what sounds like a giant portable fan that other gamers are lugging around.

As with all products, there are some drawbacks. For this particular machine, the power brick is quite sizeable. It is heavy enough to break a toe and large enough to make an uncomfortable bulge in just about any laptop storage bag. However, the power brick does come with two Velcro ties to sort both cables. This machine comes with a sub-woofer. YES! A sub-woofer! 2.1 channels! Sounds like an exciting feature, right? Unfortunately this is not the case because VIA's drivers are not performing as expected. Instead of using the sub-woofer to compliment the sound that flows out of the laptop, it actually plays every single sound its two speaker buddies are playing. It does not provide the bass that we all would love to enjoy, just awkwardly (and most horribly) acts as a third speaker that would output voice as you would think any sub-woofer would. Luckily, the sub-woofer can be disabled through the volume properties of the ASUS speakers.

Finally, although above I said that it would be a "breeze" to swap out the underperforming hard drive for a lighting fast SSD, it also contributes to one of the few low points of this laptop. This is because cloning this hard drive one-to-one is very much impossible with any of the freeware (and some paid software like Acronis) available online. I will not get into too much detail and just say that it is due to the fact that the hard drive is formatted under GUID Partition Table (GPT), and most cloning software does not know how to handle this. As of now I have not found any software that is able to handle GPT and would greatly appreciate the knowledge of one in the comments. The easiest way for anyone to swap in a SSD is to create recovery discs at first boot and then use the discs to boot up and install on the SSD.

Final Rating: 4.9/5.

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I was thrown off by negative reviewers when I was looking to buy.

With technology as it is now, a solid state drive is kind of an essential now. It gives you huge bang for your buck. True this machine doesnt come stock with one but it has room to install one easily and its engineered so its super easy to put one in.

The risks of buying a custom laptop is that your stuck with it indefinitely , in most circumstances. I'm an amazon prime member, so I get free shipping on all my orders, and amazon is awesome about returns so there isnt really any 'risk' in buying. So in the other gaming laptops in the 1500-2500 $ price range, that are NOT custom (MSI, alienware, Sager etc)(because in buying those, there IS risk involved and if you get a dead pixel in your screen, or some faulty part, your looking at weeks to months of repair time, and shipping charges etc) , the options are Asus G55 or G75, or Samsung series 7 gamer or toshiba qosmio.

the series 7 and qosmio dont have slots for an SSD which as i said , in my opinion is a must have component. that being aside the only difference then is just small differences in the internal components ie 12 gb vs 16 gb ram, 660m vs 670m , things which make difference on paper but not really in the performance of the computer. I chose the g55 because 8gb of ram is way more than enough, 660 is arguably a better card than 670 and 675m because of how it can be overclocked, and further the actual performance is so close you'll never notice it anyway. now the difference between 660m vs 7970 or the 680 is huge.. so thats a different thing , but then your looking at a "purely gaming laptop" and thats kind of a losing proposition anyway. you can hand build a better desktop for 900$ for gaming and it will outperform a 2200$ gaming laptop. so.. good to keep that all in mind. so the g55 works best for me compared to all the above models because it retains some portability, the screen is big enough, and if i want a bigger screen, i can plug it into an HDTV. the g75 is awesome too but a lot of the features, for 700$ price increase may not be worth it.. namely the 670m, and the SSD and double the ram. you can buy and install your own SSD for 120$.. and double of 8gbram is useless, so the upgrade from 660m to 670 is not worth the price increase in my opinion.

im listing this all out because when i was deciding what to buy, i had almost nothing to go on. I think others looking at this laptop will be having the same questions I had, so i hope this helps. the g55 was definitely right for me. its an incredible machine, performs awesome, looks awesome. my only gripe is that to increase the volume , you need to push FUNCTION key and then F12 . which is retarded because the FN key is on the bottom left of the keybaord, and F12 is top right. its not easy to push both with 1 hand. so I hope you dont ever eat food while you watch movies on your computer LOL or your going to have a dirty keyboard. that is a seriously retarded oversight.

other than that , asus all the way and amazon rocks you always have 30 days to change your mind.

Honest reviews on ASUS G55VW-ES71 15.6-Inch Gaming Notebook (Black)

Over the year's I've had a few ASUS gaming laptops. Personally I really do like this machine. I give it 4 out of 5 stars because of a few "quirks". They do not bother me but for the typical end user I don't believe it is fair to give something a 5 star review with a few "caveats".

Pros:

Screaming fast: I swapped out the HDD and put in a Kingston 128 SSD. With a base install boot time from power button to surfing is 18 seconds.

Keyboard: responsive to fast typing (over 100 WPM), good feeling keyboard

Ivy Bridge processor: most recent gen, fast, should handle processing needs for next 2-3 years.

8GB of Ram: I'm sorry but I hardly ever see anyone utilize more than 3 GB, I know there are some that do but for the average gamer 8 is ample enough.

Beautiful Screen: Great resolution, crisp delivery, glare is tolerable in direct sunlight

Casing: Good presentation, aggressive looking, solid feel

Ports: good selection of latest ports to meet almost all media needs (HDMI, Multicard reader, etc)

Gaming: So far it handles all games I throw at it on highest / ultra settings.

Cons:

Power brick: I agree with the first reviewer, no excuse this thing is huge. I travel for a living and have taken it with me a few times. It is large and cumbersome, but better than lugging a desktop around.

Sound: The sound is horrible, and you can't adjust the volumes. I personally NEVER use laptop speakers and bought this with the intention of using head phones. For some this may be a big problem, for me, not so much.

Weight: Gaming rigs are heavy, period. But for someone new to PC gaming, it may be a bit of a shock when you lug this beast around.

Other Thoughts:

I'm a IT Pro by trade and bought this with the intentions of making changes out the door. I was pleasantly surprised when I swapped out the HDD that the included CD contains all of the drivers in a very user friendly install interface. I am also very pleased that after running said software I had to remove very little bloatware. I personally wouldn't bother with upgrading the memory for a few reasons. One, it's more than enough for almost all users. Two, you would need to pull out the existing chips and find out the speed/type/timing. Even if you find memory of the same speed and type, you may "lose out" if you buy slower timing. Most users wouldn't notice it, but if you're going to that extent you should know what I'm talking about.

Conclusion:

This is a solid gaming rig. It is capable of playing all the games out, and will be able to hold steady for at least 2 years of new games. There are definite trade-offs when purchasing a budget laptop. You can buy a better, larger, and more capable rig elsewhere but it will cost you. I think the device delivers perfectly at its price point.

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Review-Asus G55VW laptop computer

First let me point out some issues I had with this Laptop.

The first laptop I received was defective. Occasionally there was a grinding noise made from the fan vents near the back of the computer. This happened when I was playing a game and the fan speed would increase to a certain point. After some research I found the problem to be because of possible bent fan filter that would hit the fans. After a couple days I decided this bothered me so I requested an exchange from amazon. I can't say if Asus has poor quality control or I simply got unlucky but what I can say is that exchanging with Amazon is a joy. They took back the laptop with no questions and even crossed shipped the new one so I actually received the new laptop the same day that UPS picked up the old one. I just thought WOW! In my opinion amazon has great customer service. I am also happy to say that I received the new laptop and there are no issues with the fans. I cannot really reflect this in my overall rating because I may have simply gotten the 1/1000 bad one.

Now to get to the laptop,

OVERALL FEEL:

This thing looks cool. The matte black finish is rubberized to give it a more grippy feeling. This really stands out as a nice feature on the wrist pad where it adds lots of comfort when typing. Also it's hard to tell at first but the rubberized feeling also is on the keyboard keys which are very nice. The keyboard is alright however it seemed a little small to me at first. Something that you can probably get used to though and I also have larger hands. The whole feel of the laptop is quality and is definitely much better than my old Samsung laptop. The ports are all easy to get too and well placed out. The CD drive is not the easiest to hit the button but I would consider that a positive since on my old laptop I would constantly be accidently opening it.

PERFORMANCE:

The first thing I did when getting this laptop is put a SSD in. Other reviews that I read seemed to have issues when cloning the hard drive. Well I didn't have an issue except it did take a while. First thing you should do(to make it easy) is start the laptop. As soon as you do the initial setup (enter the date, time, name. yada yada) and windows desktop comes up for the first time there will be a box popping up that asks if you want to make recovery disks. Do that, know that you need to have 4 DVD's ready to make all of the disks needed though. Go through and make them, then simply install your ssd in the back. Next you need to go into bios and make sure the computer boots from the CD drive. Insert the first disk and start it up. Install windows from the recovery disks and tada! You now have the computer running all of the stock software. Alright, now to the real review again. This computer performs great. It plenty fast and runs what games I have played on it great. So far what I have played is Battlefield bad company 2(high setting runs super smooth), fallout new vegas(Completely maxed setting super smooth), and minecraft(well it runs smooth lol). I haven't had any issues with the graphics card and it seems to run anything pretty well. I would not expect it to play the latest and greatest games maxed out but I am sure that they will run with at least medium settings fine. The fans stay quiet and that laptop doesn't seem to get to hot even after 3 or 4 hours of battlefield. My last laptop would shut down all the time due to overheating with battlefield. Overall I would say this laptop performs well and for $1200 you can't beat its performance.

A few negatives and minor gripes I have.

The first and most obvious negative for some people is going to be the sheer size of this laptop. At just over 15 inches wide this thing would not fit in my 17in laptop case! Another thing to consider is the power supply if you are planning on taking that with because it is huge in its own right. It measures roughly 6.5x3.5x1.5 inches and should be considered if you already have a bag if it will fit. Also with all this size comes the weight. It is pretty hefty laptop that may be a pain if you're constantly carrying it around with you. For me personally however these aren't that bad of issues. Another thing that I noticed is that the backlight on the screen isn't all that even. On a black screen in a dark room there is lots of backlight spots on the screen. I would say that I am usually more picky then others when it comes to screens though and the issue is not bad on anything other than a completely black screen. Even during darker scenes in video games I did not notice it. Lastly if I had to find something else wrong is that the drivers are a little buggy as far as speaker control. As in other reviews there is an issue with the "subwoofer" (if you want to call it that) not changing volume. I am happy to say that I simply updated the drivers for the sound and now it seems to be working properly.

Overall I would give this laptop 5 star because personally it was everything I was looking for in a laptop. Blue-ray may have been nice as well as a slightly better graphics card but for this price you'll be hard pressed to find another laptop that offers the same value as this one. Hopefully I helped someone else make their decision selecting this laptop because I know I had a difficult time deciding!

Review of Acer C7 C710-2847 Chromebook 11.6" Intel Dual Core B847 1.1 GHz 2GB

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List Price: $299.99
Sale Price: $255.79
Today's Bonus: 15% Off

Update: In my opinion the right Acer C7 to buy is the Acer C710-2834. As of late September 2013 it may not be shipping for a few weeks from Amazon, so you might want to wait for the C720 instead! If you can't wait, consider the Acer C710-2833, which is available for $199 from other Best Buy and Newegg. Either the 2833 or the 2834 has a 16GB SSD instead of this model's 320GB slow spinning hard drive; that is an important and noticeable performance upgrade, at the cost of disk space which is simply not that important on a Chromebook for most users.

Executive summary: $199 is a great price. Chrome OS is quite an interesting and enjoyable computing environment which serves a wide range of needs (close to all of my family's computer use for sure). The Acer C7's performance is noticeably better than that of the $249 Samsung ARM Chromebook for certain things, notably 720p video and Flash games. Plus, the Acer can be opened up and upgraded, unlike the Samsung. Along with "cheaper" those are basically the only areas in which the Acer beats the Samsung, but those made my decision for me. The major flaws of the Acer C7 are the tiny hard-to-use cursor keys, and the downright horrible speakers; the major flaws of Chrome OS, for me, are local network file access and limited supported media formats. Those are significant problems, but for $199 they are not showstoppers.

I'm quite fond of my Acer C7 Chromebook. The overwhelming feature is the price. $199!

Chrome OS offers a zero-maintenance solution to having a second computer around for family members who essentially only need a web browser anyway. I've come to really enjoy using it. I enjoy knowing that I will never need to provide much tech support for it.

A potential buyer of the Acer C7 might also be considering the $249 Samsung ARM Chromebook. I think the Samsung Chromebook is substantially more beautiful, has no fan or spinning hard drive, and has a much better keyboard and speaker. However, it is underpowered. At Best Buy I was able to try them side by side. The Acer was able to handle 720p video from YouTube almost (though not quite) perfectly; on the Samsung dropped frames were much more noticeable. I also tried a Flash game, Bloons Tower Defense 5, which I've noticed is surprisingly stressful for my older laptops. It runs fine on the Acer C7, but is very choppy on the Samsung. Finally, it is easy (if potentially warranty-breaking) to expand the RAM on the Acer C7 up to 16GB (!), and even to replace the silly hard drive with an SSD. The Samsung ARM Chromebook is essentially impossible to upgrade. That, for me, was the clincher.

The Acer C7, though not actually ugly, is not a particularly pretty machine. The plastic around the display has a particularly cheap look-and-feel. The hinge at least feels strong. The display itself is reasonably nice, with a decent viewing angle. It's glossy.

I do not like the keyboard. I think overall it's not a great keyboard (especially compared to the Samsung ARM Chromebook which has a lovely pleasant-to-use keyboard). The really awful thing is the cursor keys, which are startlingly small and also scrunched up with the page up and down keys. It is really, really unpleasant to use the cursor keys on this keyboard. There are other oddities, if not real problems. The Enter key is oddly shaped for no apparent reason other than gratuitous ugliness. The keyboard has a Caps Lock key (usually replaced by Search on Chrome OS keyboards), and also a Fn key, the only purpose of which is to have a Wifi-Disable keypress Fn-F11 (did anyone really need that?) and to send function keys over Chrome Remote Desktop (I suppose someone might need that---but I regret having a whole key for it in prime territory). This keyboard puts the Chrome OS Search key down with the Control and Alt keys, which is unusual in Chrome OS devices, but it does work to my benefit as it sends Command to Macs over Chrome Remote Desktop. In case it helps anyone, right-Control also sends Command.

I like the Chrome OS keys for back, forward, refresh, full screen, and next window.

The touchpad is quite a bit more resistant to clicking than I would like. I use tap-to-click instead, but there's no tap-only variant of click-and-drag. (I want the 3-finger drag from Apple.)

I often use this Chromebook attached to an external display (and keyboard and mouse... think of it as a desktop replacement!). When I first posted this review I mentioned some issues with this configuration. A Chrome OS update in mid-February 2013 fully resolved these issues for me. The OS auto-update feature is delightful, by the way, automatic and non-intrusive.

With an external Mac keyboard, Command sends Control, which is great for someone whose hands are used to Mac key shortcuts.

The absolute worst thing about the Acer C7 is the speakers. They are bad. Really, really, bad. They're quiet and tinny and I can hardly stand to listen to them. I'm no audiophile, either---I think almost anyone who uses this machine will cringe a little bit at the sound quality. Was this really necessary to hit this price point? Be prepared to use headphones or external speakers. (And not Bluetooth external speakers... I'm told they are not supported in Chrome OS at all, and this machine doesn't have Bluetooth anyway.)

The fan is audible. Not awful, but this is no silent machine. I can't really tell which sounds are the fan and which are the spinning hard drive.

This Acer C7 model comes with a 320GB hard drive. The question here is... why? As far as I can tell the only filesystem access you get is your Downloads folder. Which the OS is allowed to clear at will to free up space! Chrome OS was designed for minimal local storage, and frankly I don't see how this space will ever be that useful. I suppose there's the "load it up with movies before the car trip" argument. I'll probably even do that myself when I go to visit my family this holiday season. But I'd prefer to have a silent, fast, tiny SSD for normal use, and bring my movies on an external hard drive. Update: This is now possible with the Acer C710-2833, which I recommend instead of this model, and which is also really available for $199 on Amazon.

I wish it had USB 3.0. Oh well. (Another point in favor of the Samsung ARM Chromebook, there.)

On to software. You can use the Web. You can get a terminal with Control-Alt-T and use ssh (but no real local shell). Chrome Remote Desktop is entirely usable. Google Cloud Print seems to work fine, for those of us who have an always-on computer around anyway. Offline Gmail and Google Docs are great if you sometimes lack internet access. Flash games work fine. Google Hangouts has a dumb name but is a fantastic videoconferencing product (the camera and microphone are fine).

While I'm on Chrome Remote Desktop: You'll want to right-click the app icon to get it to "open as window", because if it opens as a tab Chrome itself will consume keypresses like control-N and control-W instead of sending them to the remote host.

One thing that is lacking is the ability is access network file storage. We have an always-on computer filled with video and audio and I'd like to be able to access those files conveniently. What I've done that's workable is started an FTP server on that machine. But it's not a great interface, and each file has to be downloaded before playing, rather than being streamed. "Sneakernet" via USB drive works fine too of course. I think there is pay software, like TVersity, that will set up a media server for you with a nice HTTP interface, but I haven't tried it. And I wish this was built in.

Media playing is a mixed bag. This is irritating... why can't every computer just come with a player as nearly universal as VLC? I haven't had trouble with audio; it seems to play my various mp3, m4a, flac, and wav files just fine. Video is trickier. It seems to play mp4 files happily. It will play some avi files, but not others. Wmv files don't work. For the somewhat technically proficient: you can convert to Chromebook-playable MP4 using various products, like Handbrake or VLC, or the command-line tool ffmpeg: "ffmpeg -i file.avi -c copy file.mp4", "ffmpeg -i file.avi -qscale 5 -strict -2 file.mp4", and "ffmpeg -i file.wmv -qscale 2 file.mp4" are three simple sets of options I've found useful. Frankly having to learn about ffmpeg is, again, irritating; this should just work.

You can enter Developer Mode using a particular keystroke during bootup. This gives you a root shell which potentially allows all kinds of fun. It also wipes all storage in your "stateful partition", so don't do this after filling up your silly 320GB hard drive with things you want. The wiping also happens on leaving Developer Mode. Developer Mode also makes Netflix stop working. After playing with this for a bit I decided I didn't really need it. I like that it's there... the principle of the device being unlocked is pleasing to me. But in the end the clean, minimal, just-works built-in Chrome OS is essentially what I want from this machine.

Conclusion: At $500+ Chrome OS is an oddball. At $200 Chrome OS is a remarkable new paradigm in computing. It's pleasant to use, and for $200, the various hardware and software flaws aren't bad enough to give me much pause. In fact, for $200, if you're at all tempted, you might as well buy it and see for yourself. A reason to pause would be to consider the $250 Samsung ARM Chromebook, which has significantly better aesthetics and might be a better choice for some people. For me, the Acer C7's better performance for 720p video and Flash gaming, plus the ability to upgrade memory and hard drive, makes it the winner.

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First of all, I didn't purchase this from Amazon, since the only sellers here are selling it at absurd prices, there are plenty of places selling it for the $199 price. Because of the low price, I wasn't sure what I was going to get. I was quite surprised to see that although it is hardly a premium build, it is quite attractive for the price. Basically, this is about a $300 machine (if it ran Windows) being sold for $199.

I am getting about 4 hours of battery life, which is more than I expected. Since unlike the Samsung unit the battery is removable, I am sure that extra batteries and batteries with a longer life will soon be available.

Compared to the Samsung model this unit costs about $50 less. What you give up is (a) battery life (but the Samsung battery is not removable); bluetooth, some weight and size, and you get a 320gb hard drive instead of the Samsung's 16gb ssd. What you gain is a slighty bigger keyboard, a slightly better screen, and the ability to play Netflix (since the Acer uses an Intel processor). Although there isn't too much use for a large drive in ChromeOS, it is a huge benefit if you want to install Ubuntu which is easy to do on the Acer if you want a "real" OS on it along with ChromeOS. You can also easily expand the RAM and swap the hard drive out if you want, although it will void your warranty.

My big worry was that the hard drive would result in slow boot up times, but honestly this thing boots up from off in about 15 seconds and is extremely quick while surfing, so it hasn't been an issue.

What this thing is NOT is a Windows computer that will allow you to download programs like Office or iTunes. I am amazed at the number of people bitching about this when it is so easy to read and find out what ChromeOS is.

What this excels at is web surfing, not having to worry about viruses, and having automatic updates. WHen I use my Windows and Apple systems I seem to spend most of my time updating, worrying about viruses, etc. For the times when you are watching netflix, hulu or amazon video, catching up on emails, surfing, using goole+ hangout for video chats or doing light weight work with Goggle docs this Acer is quick, cheap and maintenance free. What more could you want for this price?

Best Deals for Acer C7 C710-2847 Chromebook 11.6" Intel Dual Core B847 1.1 GHz 2GB

I researched the chromebook prior to my purchase and was worried that I had made a 200 dollar mistake. Many blog reviews mentioned the poor design or cheap materials. So I pictured this very ugly and flimsy laptop showing up. I opened the box and was delighted by what I found inside. I thought the Acer Chromebook really looked good. It passed the preverbal test of I would not be ashamed of being seen with the device. To me it seemed too many reviewers had taken the smallest things and made them seem like critical defects. In my opinion from an appearance perspective the Chrome book holds it own in the economy laptop world.

Performance on the Chromebook has been pretty good. The battery life seems low with only 3.5 to 4 hours. I cant stress enough that it is a different world working with a Chromebook. Not a bad world just a different world. I really like the simplicity of the device. I was not a big google product user so that has been the biggest part of the learning curve. After two weeks I have found that I am really learning to let go of a Windows universe. Life after Windows has been refreshing.

I picked the Acer due to the cost and tasks i typically use my iPad for. For example, I wanted to watch Netflix and other video streaming and the other Chromebook with the SSD seems to be unable to do that at this time.

Some reviews have mentioned the fan noise but I have not had any issues with that. It does turn on but it is not a distraction. I think much of the really detailed criticism is more for people who are very refined in what they expect for a laptop. For 200 dollars this is a great machine to surf the net, watch movies, do social media, and do homework on. It has build in virus protection and no other software is needed. The apps/ browser extensions allow for a great deal of variety in how you use the device. Add a ten dollar wireless mouse and this little machine is good for a casual evening of digital consumption or the typical homework assignment.

I would buy it again.

Honest reviews on Acer C7 C710-2847 Chromebook 11.6" Intel Dual Core B847 1.1 GHz 2GB

First off, I gotta get it out there... I am absolutely IN LOVE with this thing! I have been a Googlephile since joining Gmail in 2005, so obviously this is right up my alley. But you don't have to use all the Google services to appreciate this revolutionary piece of machine.

Anyone thinking about switching to the Chrome OS needs to know what it can and can not do. In a nutshell, if you can do it with a web browser in Windows, you can do it here. There are a few rare exceptions, but those are disappearing. If you are willing to rethink how you do things, I've found that the Chromebook can do about anything you would want to do. I am a heavy computer user, fix PCs for a living, and I have not once had to use my Windows 7 desktop since purchasing this Chromebook on 12/21/2012.

Now you won't be able to use a lot of peripheral devices with it, but most of the standards work. Keyboards, mice and external storage devices will work fine. Things like cameras, phones, etc will not (though they will still work for charging of course). This does not mean you can't accomplish your task though. The Chromebooks still have SD card slots, so for something like a camera, rather than plugging the camera in to dump pictures, you just take the SD card out and plug that in. Same task done, just in a different way. It also will not interface directly with printers, but with Google Cloud Print, that's not a problem, and you'll still be able to print from it just fine.

As far as this particular Chromebook, I don't have much to say or to compare against other models. This review is mostly about the Chrome OS itself, which is certainly the shining feature.

As someone who spends most of his days cleaning up viruses, re-installing software, etc, the Chrome OS is a HUGE breath of fresh air. It simply works exactly how it is supposed to, and it works the same every single time. I haven't had to install a single bit of software or wait for a single update. All the software you need comes from the cloud through the browser, and all the updates are done silently in the background, and at MOST will make your boot up take an extra 30 seconds. I have not once had to restart the Chromebook because of an odd glitch, though that's not to say it's impossible. Just hasn't happened to me at all through a month and half of heavy use. My Windows machine surely would of done it many times in that month and a half.

The other really great thing about living a cloud-based computing life is never worrying about losing your stuff. Services like Google Docs are constantly saving your work in the cloud. I can in theory (and have once just for fun) stop in the middle of working, go sign into my sister's Chromebook and pick right up where I left off. Fantastic. Gone are the days of losing everything you've done simply because your computer died.

The Chrome OS is also GREAT for people who share a computer. All information is kept private between accounts, unlike Windows where some security exists, but most files are still open for everyone by default. Someone could use my Chromebook to look at all sorts of awful things, and I would never know. The guest mode is also great for the security minded. Anyone who's ever owned a laptop knows that people are CONSTANTLY asking "Hey can I use your laptop real quick? I gotta check XYZ". Well in the Chrome OS, they can just use the Guest account so that they will not mess up any of your stuff, and unlike Windows' guest mode, Chrome OS will delete everything the guest downloaded/viewed as soon as they log out. It's a beautiful thing.

I feel like I could keep going on and on about how much I love this thing, but I bet hardly anyone will read it, so I won't bother. So, on to the wrap up... Oh and did I mention, like everyone else has, just how quickly this thing boots?! Less than 20 seconds. Jesus...

The Chrome OS is not for everyone, but actually it pretty much is. And it is constantly getting better and adding even more features. If you're ready to give up all the frustrations you normally have with a computer, and want to spend your computer time actually DOING stuff rather than working to keep the thing running, then get a Chromebook. If you just spent 10 minutes waiting for your computer to boot up because it had 20 updates to install, and it sent you into a fit of rage, get a Chromebook. If you're tired of paying $50 a year for virus protection that slows things way down and ultimately still lets a virus through, get a Chromebook. If you simply want to be cool like me, then get a Chromebook.

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I got the Acer C7 almost a week ago and I have barely put it down! This is an amazing machine, it does absolutely everything I want and it was two hundred dollars. How can you beat that? Since receiving my Chromebook I have touched my iPad a total of one time, and that was just to get music and movies off of it. It is comparable in weight to the iPad and it has a bigger screen. I haven't noticed any issues with the battery life. It lasts upwards of four hours. And honestly it's rare (for me at least) to be using it for that long without being near a power source. I have been able to find web apps for everything I need or want. I am a student so I do writing, research, web browsing all that fun stuff and this takes it all in stride. I love the three hundred and twenty gigs of memory. I am very comfortable with the cloud, but it's nice to actually have some music and such on your device. I read reviews of the fan being loud, or the vent blowing out really hot air, I have experienced none of that. If the room is silent I can here the fan, but if there is any other noise it is silent. The air is warm not hot. The keyboard is great. The trackpad was just a tiny bit sluggish for my taste, but as soon as I turned up the speed in the settings it was perfect.

This is a great device. If you are considering this device I highly recommend it.

Buy Dell - Inspiron - 17R-N7110 - Intel Core i5-2430M 2.40GHz - 8GB RAM

Customer Ratings:

Fast and economic laptop, bigger and brilliant screen, overall a good deal. The only drawback I can see is the size if you're a serious traveler.

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Good for Video Editing, MS Office, and Web Surfing. The only PC game I play is Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 which runs well except for when I use night mode. The battery drains too quickly sometimes. I hate the placement of usb and ethernet ports. Another issue is the size when you want to travel with it. Overall, Decent laptop

Buy Apple MacBook Pro MC723LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop (OLD VERSION)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $1,999.00
Sale Price: $1,945.00
Today's Bonus: 3% Off

First, a little background. Aside from a TI-99 we had when I was a kid and the Apple IIc computers at my middle school, I've always been a Windows guy. I feel very comfortable in the Windows environment and have been building my own PCs for about 15 years. I don't hate Microsoft. But when the need for another laptop became clear, I decided to focus my search on the higher end machines. I wanted good horsepower, but I especially wanted a nicer form factor than the creaky Dells I had become accustomed to. As I had fallen in love with the interface on my iPhone, I decided it was time to give MacBooks a try. I kept my Windows desktop in case I ran into compatibility problems.

The short version of that story is that I quickly dismantled my PC and now use this laptop as my only machine. I am fortunate to be able to do so because my work as an attorney requires only Word, Excel, and an internet browser. As a bonus, my copy of Lightroom 3 also installed on the MacBook. I'm trying not to sound like a Mac zealot, so let's have a list:

-Aluminum unibody is no marketing gimmick. It's sturdy and feels great with no flex and no creaking. Looks nice, too.

-Keyboard is well-engineered. The key travel and spacing between keys feel just right for my taste. There is no flex here, either, which I often find disconcerting on other laptops.

-Trackpad is a marvel. It really is. It's very large, but I've yet to feel like it's in the way. And the finger movements are intuitive and work very well.

-The screen is bright, clear and has great color. The reflectivity is sometimes an issue in bright locations, but I find tilting it a little solves most problems. Otherwise, you can custom order the anti-glare screen direct from Apple.

-The lid closes with a magnet, so there's nothing to break.

-It is very fast. In my experience, Mac OS X starts up and shuts down far faster than a comparably spec'ed Windows machine. I have yet to feel a need for 8 GB of RAM, but an upgrade would only cost $90 if you know how to do it yourself. Otherwise, I have no issues running lots of standard programs at once.

-Comes with Time Machine. As an attorney and amateur photographer, I have lots of stuff that needs to be backed up regularly and reliably. Time Machine works so well and so seamlessly that I can't imagine how I survived before.

-Spotlight is brilliant. Type in any word, and Spotlight almost instantly gives you results from your entire hard drive, including INSIDE your searchable documents, preferences, web results, and even definitions of words.

-Seven hours of battery life is very possible, even on wireless. I can sit in Starbucks for hours unplugged and still have plenty of life left. The caveat is that you really can only surf and use programs like Word. I also have Flash installed, which is a huge battery drainer, so I grabbed a Flash-blocking program that let's me choose which Flash files to activate. Nice solution.

-HD webcam. Nice quality, though I haven't really done more than messed around with it.

-The magnetic power cable is slick.

-As a former Windows user, I find the Mac OS X interface to be really nice and intuitive. There's obviously a learning curve, though I've found it be surprisingly short. Lion is anticipated to be a nice upgrade, too.

-PRICE! Well, a lot of people complain about the Apple premium, and it definitely exists. I found this laptop to be a few hundred dollars higher than the really nice Windows laptops with mostly similar specs, although I don't think comparing raw horsepower between two different operating systems is always an accurate benchmark. I live on my computer, so I'm willing to pay a little more to get what I want. It's like buying a BMW because you have to spend three or four hours a day in your car. Whether that value equation works for you or not is up to you and your checkbook.

-Anything I dislike? Not really. I'd like maybe one more USB port and a CF card reader. I'd love to start seeing cheaper SSDs in these things, but that's really not Apple's fault. Decent SSDs with any size are still expensive for everyone. I was a little nervous about having a 5400 RPM HDD. I think transferring large NEF files from the card reader might be fractionally slower. The tradeoff in battery life is probably worth it. Will Thunderbolt be worth it? Who knows? I don't care just yet, but ask me next year.

I know there's more to say, but I'm running out of steam. I'm happy to discuss anything in the comments.

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The update to the 15-inch MacBook Pro in February 2011 was significant. Indeed, significant may be an understatement when it comes to the increase of processor performance offered by the updated machines. Quick thanks to Amazon and Apple Stores for having these immediately available at launch.

The primary upgrade to this revision? The processor! Intel has a brand new architecture called Sandy Bridge, and these MacBook Pros are the first Macs to feature this technology. Some have called it some of the most significant changes to Intel architecture since Pentium 4 was introduced. These 15-inch MacBook Pros as well as its big brother, the 17-inch, not only take advantage of Sandy Bridge, but the Quad Core i7 Variant. Quad Core processor in a notebook Mac! Wow.

I actually chose the 13-inch model for my personal use (only Dual Core on the 13-inch), but a 15-inch is replacing an aging iMac at the office to save space and leap over its performance. These Quad Core Chips are amazing. Early benchmarks are showing this entry-level 15-inch, 50 percent faster than the upper end i7 15-inch MacBook pro from a year ago. A dramatic improvement. This higher end model is even better. Furthermore, if you're still on a Core 2 Duo machine such as the iMac I am replacing, the performance is as much as 2.5 times faster and 3x faster with this higher end model. At least in terms of the processor. This is most beneficial in processor intensive applications, for consumers such applications are iMovie and Garageband. Professionals will see the new processors beneficial in any professional photo editing, video, or music work.

This model also includes a fantastic dedicated graphics card with 1GB of graphics memory. 1GB of graphics memory is a a first for Mac notebooks.

One downside is that due to cost, the machine still comes with a spinning hard drive standard. In this case, the standard drive is a 5400 RPM 750 GB drive. That offers plenty of storage, but is slightly slower than a desktop 7200RPM drive and much slower than a new, solid state drive. You do have options. You can special order the machine from Apple with a 7200RPM drive, or Solid State Drive. However, what I have decided to do, is simply, when I'm ready, swap out the drive myself. Other World Computing sells solid state drives compatible. It might not be easy for every user, but for those with some computer experience, it is a fairly easy swap. Then I can install a faster solid state drive, when the more acceptable capacity drives come down a bit in price. You might also choose to do the swap yourself because you can then put the hard drive that was originally in the machine, into an external enclosure, and use it as an external drive for backup. Of course, any damage you cause to the machine would not be covered under warranty. Therefore, if you have any concern, you might want to see if you can special order from Apple online, or in many situations, you will find the standard hard drive to be acceptable.

After the processor advancement, Thunderbolt is the other great new technology included in this revision to the MacBook Pro. Thunderbolt looks like the Mini Displayport that was already included on the MacBook Pros. Indeed, it will still function perfectly as a Mini Displayport, for connecting an external display. However, Thunderbolt is more importantly a new interface to connect external devices in the future, such as, external hard drives, HD camcorders, and perhaps even iPads, iPods, or iPhones someday. Data would then transfer many times faster to and from these devices than it does currently. These devices were not available at the time of the MacBook Pro's launch, but we have already heard that external drives should be available later this year with Thunderbolt connectivity.

iSight camera has been upgraded to HD resolution and Face Time pre-installed on the computer. This gives you the ability to video chat, easily, with other Macs and notably, iPhone 4s and the newest iPod Touch with front facing camera.

The consumer software you expect to be included by Apple is once again here. The latest version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (operating system), iLIfe 11 including iPhoto, Garageband, iMovie, iDVD, and iWeb is all here. OS X always includes Safari web browser, iTunes, and Mail applications too. The average user would be good to go out of the box. You might pick up Microsoft Office for your office document needs, or simply purchase Apple's iWork applications (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) from new Mac App Store on your computer.

The new MacBooK Pros, thanks to Sandy Bridge technology are fast. They will save you time, when using processor intensive applications. Time in business, saves people money and frustration. The average consumer might see less gains with this update as physically the MacBook Pro has retained it identical appearance, size, and weight. Nevertheless, under the unibody, improvements have certainly occurred which result in a much faster notebook. The fact that these 15-inch and 17-inch models now include Quad Core Processors standard is really extraordinary. This is putting recent top of the line desktop performance, into a sleek and attractive Mac Notebook. A breakthrough. Recommended Product!

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Apple MacBook Pro MC723LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop

I have spent months reviewing different laptops. I've gone through at least 10 laptops in the last year looking for that one laptop that I will be pleased with and keep for more than a year or two. I've had Acer, HP, Compaq, Asus, Sony, Toshiba, and others. Sony was the only laptop that didn't go FUBAR within a year or so.

So, I thought I would give Apple a shot and I was not disappointed. I first tried out a 17" dual core that was super but the resolution was just too small for my eyes and I returned it. But I was so impressed with the quality of the case, the screen (albeit the resolution too small for my eyes), the quality of the innards (no cheap stuff under this hood), the quality of the power cord, the very fast 800 firewire, the backlight keyboard, the ease of typing on the keyboard, and the mouse pad. The mouse pad on this laptop was the first one I have not had to disable while typing. I have no idea why we have been stuck with those stupid PC mouse pads for so long when the solution was so easy! On the Apple laptop you push the pad down instead of tapping it. This means the cursor does not move to some abstract place and you find yourself typing three pages back!

But, then Intel released their new Sandy chips. I figured that Apple would not use these chips for some time so I started looking at PCs again just for the new chip. I couldn't bring myself to buy a PC after owning a Apple. Fortunately Apple did release these new Macbook Pros with Intel's new chip with increased graphic memory and the new Thunderbolt. Plus Apple increased the speed of the memory.

I just could not help myself and I purchased this MBP 15" with the 2.2 i7 Sandy Bridge with the 1G memory. I am very glad I did. This laptop is fast. Its unibody case makes this the most solid and durable laptop on the market. The innards are easy to access to upgrade memory and the hard drive. Everything inside this machine is neatly arranged and is of top quality. The battery is rated for seven hours which is pretty accurate. The Mac OS is written to take advantage of the quad core chip, memory, etc. The LED screen is crisp and clear, and with the regular 1440X900 resolution I can easily use this laptop without any eyestrain.

I only have one puzzling complaint about this new laptop. Why in the world would a company build one of the fastest top quality laptops in the world and stick a hard drive spinning at 5400 RPM? Yes it is a 750 gigabyte drive, which few people including myself could never fill. But running at 5400 RPM? I just cannot understand this.

You can order the drive spinning at 7200 RPM or opt for a SSD on the Apple online store. The strange thing is that the 7200 RPM drive is the same price as the drive spinning at 5400 RPM. But that is not the point. Yes, most people will never notice the speed difference between a 5400 RPM and a 7200 RPM drive unless you are doing some pretty intensive media editing or are a avid game player. The point is why build a top of the line laptop and stick in a old busted down 5400 RPM hard drive like an afterthought. I fixed this discrepancy by installing a new Intel 160G SSD (solid state drive).

I have been using laptops since 1991 when they made great paperweights when they died. This is the best laptop I have ever owned. Do yourself a favor and try one. Even if you don't like it you can always return it. I don't think you will, but you do have that option.

Honest reviews on Apple MacBook Pro MC723LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop (OLD VERSION)

I've been a power Mac user since its introduction in 1984, and have owned various portable and desktop configurations since then. Frequently, you will see major leaps in desktop performance, but it is rare to see dramatic improvements with laptops (you typically see 25-50% improvements). But I have to say, in all the Mac laptops I've owned since my very first PowerBook G4, this is the most dramatic leap in performance I've ever seen. Not only is it 2.8x FASTER than my mid-2009 2.66GHz Core2-Duo 15" MacBook Pro, it is slightly faster than my 2008 2.8GHz dual-quad-core MacPro!

I bought my 2011 MacBook Pro (2.3GHz quad-core i7, 15" high-res screen) as an upgrade from my mid-2009 15" unibody MacBook Pro. I wasn't expecting to be LITERALLY blown away by the raw computing and graphics performance of this update. I have run every standard benchmark suite in comparison not only with my 2009 MBPro, but also against my 2008 dual 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeon "Harpertown" MacPro. And to my surprise, this little wonder beats BOTH machines in CPU and graphics performance. Imagine carrying a laptop with true desktop power. My real-world tests (iMovie, Aperture, Photoshop and Nikon Capture NX) simply validate the benchmark results.

Here's what my tests reveal:

Geekbench: 10450 (vs. 3722 for 2009 MBPro vs. 9533 for 2008 MacPro)

Cinebench 11 CPU: 5.56 (vs. 1.53 for 2009 MBPro vs. 5.76 for 2008 MacPro)

Cinebench 11 GPU: 36.38 (vs. 13.77 for 2009 MBPro/nVidia vs. 26.51 for 2008 MacPro/ATI 5770)

Now THAT is impressive!

Even though the Intel "SandyBridge" core i7 processor in this Mac is advertised as quad-core, each core supports 2 simultaneous threads (8 operations), which you can literally see when running Cinebench. If your computing needs don't support multiple cores, the i7 can bump the speed of a single core up to 3.4GHz (TurboBoost) as well.

To truly match/replace your desktop environment, you'll need to replace the built-in hard drive with an SSD, because 2.5" hard disks, even in 7200rpm configurations, are much slower than their 3.5" desktop counterparts. I bought my SSD through OWC, and I'm seeing anywhere from 3-40x(!) faster performance for I/O intensive operations such as booting, working with VMWare/Parallels virtual machines, and processing large files (images, video, etc). It is simply the best investment you can make, if you can afford it.

Beyond the raw power, there are a number of incremental improvements over the 2009 model:

integrated Intel 3000 graphics, and ATI Radeon 6750M (dedicated graphics with 1GB VRAM)

1.33GHz memory backplane, supporting up to 16GB of RAM through third-party modules

new Thunderbolt interface using the Mini DisplayPort connector (super-fast 10Gbps interconnect for up to 6 devices, although no Thunderbolt devices are available yet)

Mini DisplayPort supports digital audio and video on a single cable (including HDMI with suitable third-party adapters)

higher-resolution FaceTime camera

SD slot now supports SDXC

updated optical drive (ingest mechanism is less finicky for me)

better battery life

The high-resolution screen in this model REALLY makes a difference over the standard screen (which I had on my 2009 model). The 1680x1050 resolution is the same as my older 21" Apple Cinema Display. I was afraid the higher resolution would make it harder to read (the text is smaller), but the brightness and wide-angle visibility makes this one of the best displays you can get in a laptop form factor. If you work in heavily-lit or outdoor environments, you might want to consider the anti-glare (matte) screen which is available in Apple's build-to-order configurations. Both dual and mirrored display configurations are possible simultaneously supporting full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of color. Interestingly, in my configuration, I was only able to get an external HDMI display to operate on the high-performance discrete GPU only.

Another pleasant surprise for me was the battery life of this new 2011 model. Even with all that processing power, I'm consistently getting 6-7 hours of usable life (lightweight not heavy work). One big tip for saving battery life is to install the freeware gfxCardStatus utility, which lets you choose integrated only (much lower power), automatic, or discrete/ATI graphics. Apple's own Energy Saver system preference only lets you choose between automatic or discrete. And when you're running on the battery, this can be problematic because simply launching some programs (eg. PhotoShop) can force the discrete adapter. Like earlier designs, the battery is built into the unit and cannot be swapped or user-replaced. In practical use, I don't find this to be a problem because I'm getting the same extended runtime that I got on earlier MacBook Pros with 2 battery swaps.

Rounding out the compliment of ports (on the left side only) is Gb ethernet, FireWire 800, 2 USB 2.0 ports, audio out and audio in (both supporting analog and digital/TOSlink connectors). If there is any weakness, it would be nice to have a right-side USB port, or at least enough separation between the USB ports to not force you to use a short USB dongle cable with your 3G wireless card (if you want to use both ports).

As with Apple's other MacBook Pros, this model is built on their "unibody" construction, where the main case is crafted from a single piece of aluminum. This makes the laptop amazingly rigid, and also allows it to be lighter weight, thinner, and better at dissipating heat than more traditional laptop designs. Apple makes it easy to upgrade the memory or hard drive (you just need a fine #00 phillips screwdriver to remove the screws on the bottom plate).

One last note on this MacBook Pro Apple bundles a special build of OS X 10.6.6 which you will want to immediately upgrade to 10.6.7 using Apple's Software Update mechanism. (You can't apply the 10.6.7 combo updater since this version of 10.6.6 is later than the standard build). The "OS X 10.6.7 Update for Early 2011 MacBook Pro" includes an important fix for the discrete graphics processor under heavy workloads.

For those of you (like me) who still have older PowerPC software that hasn't been updated (Quicken!), this will most likely be the last generation of Apple notebooks to run on OS X 10.6.x "Snow Leopard". The next release of OS X 10.7 ("Lion") has removed support for running PowerPC applications (Rosetta). This alone was worth me upgrading to this model.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Apple MacBook Pro MC723LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop (OLD VERSION)

I've used a pretty wide variety of both PCs and Macs, both for personal use and for work. I've used them for gaming, development, and run-of-the-mill tasks. However, my last two machines (three counting this one) were all Macs. I'm still a believer in the PC for hardcore desktop gaming, but as far as laptops go I'm pretty much sold on Apple. Why? Quite simply, Mac laptops are just a lot less fuss. They don't break down or exhibit weird quirks as often as PC notebooks, generally last longer on battery power, and take up less space. For my latest machine, I decided to splurge a bit and get something that can actually play gamesfully intending to take advantage of Boot Camp to run the loads of Windows titles I usually play on my monster desktop gaming rig. The 15" 2011 Pro with 1 GB video was the obvious choice: not so big I can't carry it around, yet with enough muscle to run anything in my library. Was it worth the huge price tag? In a word: yes.

Pros:

Case design is superior, not just elegant but functional as well. It's actually somewhat water resistant (don't ask) and very easy to clean. The form factor is slim and handyeasy to carry around.

Hardware layout is well thought out, and design is excellent. Speakers are positioned so the sound is crisp, almost as if you had externals. Camera is sharp. Trackpad is huge and very responsive.

Mac OS X is still the best OS out there. I must say, Windows 7 is a whole lot closer than any other previous incarnation of that franchise, but OS X still has it beat in many ways: no defragging, doesn't degrade over time (especially when used for software development), more stable, boots up and shuts down faster, and generally speaking more intuitive in UI layout. You'll also have a lot less to worry about as far as malware and spyware are concerned.

Screen quality is great, and the backlighting for both the display and keyboard are excellent. Note: I strongly recommend paying the extra for the high-res 1680x1050 display upgrade, unless you're always going to have your machine hooked up to an external display. It is totally worth it. Second note: if you do get this upgrade, don't bother with the anti-glare, as it's equally totally NOT worth it (you can get a third party stick-on that does the same for a lot less, and is removable).

Has enough power for pretty much anything. RAM/hard drive are easily upgradeablebuy it yourself and install it yourself; it's about as hard as loading VHS cassettes. This model straight out of the box can run most current games on max settings.

Dual boot is easy to set up. I'm running Win 7 64 alongside Snow Leopard for gaming purposes. Boot camp sets up all the drivers with little fuss. The only issues I've seen are that the graphics card switching doesn't work on Windows, which eats up battery a lot faster, and right clicking with the trackpad is a bit awkward. The latter is easily solved by hooking up a 2-button mouse.

Magsafe is awesome. I'd probably be out a few dozen machines from tripping over the cable if not for this simple yet brilliant feature.

Battery life is great. It doesn't usually last for 7 hrs as advertised; 5 hrs is more typical when doing various tasks. However, even that is huge compared to most similarly specced laptops.

For a laptop of this size with this power, it's really light.

Apple's customer support is top-notch. If you're in the US their stores are pretty much everywhere, and you can get same-day repair service in most cases. Try doing that with Dell or HP sometime...

Cons:

The mini displayport/Thunderbolt connector means you'll need an adapter for pretty much every different video device you hook up. They're a bit awkward to hook up and can get bulky if you have enough of them.

If you run 3-D intensive apps like most games the big video card turns on, and it runs pretty darn hot. When the fans kick in, it gets pretty loud.

Compared to some older unibody platforms, it's harder to get at the innards. You have to unscrew the whole bottom plate and remove it to even access the battery. For most users, though, this shouldn't be too big a deal.

It's considerably more expensive than a similarly specced Windows laptop.

Doesn't have a blu-ray drive, if you care. Most Windows machines in this price range do.

Is this machine for everyone? Probably not if due to the price alone, but I've found less to complain about than just about every other laptop I've owned. I'm still a fan of the regular MacBook for non-gaming/coding tasks due to its smaller form factor, lower cost, and lighter weight. However, it doesn't have the power to do anything more serious than video playback. If that's all you're going to do and ease of transport is a priority, then go for it. If you're planning on replacing a desktop or want some serious mobile power, then the Pro is a better choice.